Genesis
by Arford
Summary: This will be a bit of a crossover between Naruto and Bleach. There will be references to other theories and works, but hopefully I will be able to focus on Naruto and Bleach. (All I have is an idea at the moment, so bear with me) Pairings undecided, if at all. Rating will be changed if necessary.
1. Introduction

Ten. Ten tails. The ten agonies of death; the tendencies of mortal flaw and failure.

Rage. Loneliness. Age. Sacrifice. Nihilism. Despair. Destruction. Intoxication. Madness. Greed.

Nine. Nine realms on the mortal plane. Nine worlds of suffering. Nine worlds of birth. Nine worlds of death.

Jupiter. Mars. Saturn. Pluto. Venus. Neptune. Mercury. Uranus. Earth.

Eight. Eight confines of condemnation, barring the eight rivers of rebirth. The gates which represent the divine paths, carved into the flesh of creation.

Kaimon. Kyuumon. Seimon. Shoumon. Toumon. Keimon. Kyoumon. Shimon.

Seven. Seven layers of hell, one for each of its trespasses. One tail for each layer; one layer for one sin.

Pride. Wrath. Lust. Envy. Want. Gluttony. Sloth.

Six. Six points on a wheel - six stages of a cycle, constantly repeating. Forever mirroring the cycle of everything. Gedou's domain.

Jigokudou. Gakidou. Shuradou. Tendou. Chikushoudou. Ningendou.

Five. The pentagram of balance. The elemental corners of establishment. The passions to prevent. The design to destroy.

Rain. Thunder. Flame. Gale. Stone.

Four. The four demon lords who guard the four winds. Four forms bound by the blade, cast from the sword by the sword.

Byakkou. Suzaku. Seiryuu. Genbu.

Three. The perfect base. The source of cycles. The beginning of balance. The three shards of existence.

Soul. Mind. Body.

Two. The dividing line of judgment. Equivalent sides of a scale, tipped over and over again, searching for equilibrium.

Moon. Sun.

One. The last and loneliest. The crude judge whose gaze is the Beholder. Vanity at its core.

Kami.


	2. Prologue

It was said that there was once a monster that ravaged the world. A monster whose power knew no bound. A beast whose very presence sentenced death and desolation. The common people had no idea where such a monstrosity could have come from; they had no idea why they were the victims of its judgment. And these people lay in their ignorance, believing they were innocent. But they were not.

Long, long ago, there was war between many nations and many people. The civilians had no outs and were mixed in with soldiers. Damage was widespread and pain cornered every child, forcing each little boy and girl to suffer. There was no such thing as a clear sky. There was sunshine and rain, but the sky was often more red than it was blue.

People had forgotten what peace was. People had forgotten the meaning behind the word and the existence of the word itself. But the belief was still there, albeit that very few had recognized it for what it was. None more so than the most guilty of all humans, however. It was she who condemned these people, and it was she who granted the world its greatest weapon.

It had begun innocent enough. She had cried to the heavens and to every single deity of hell and in between. She was the princess and later queen of her people. But she was just a face, and her heart was broken. Broken by the endless cycle of death. The endless abyss of loss.

And so, she sought a way to bring forth a time where there would be no fighting. Where there would be no bloodshed. It was a dream, she realized, that she desired more than anything else. And she would do anything she could to achieve it. Even if it meant sacrificing more than she could handle.

But she never suspected that she would have to sacrifice the unwilling to achieve her dream.

It was perfect, or so she thought. She felt that she could succeed. She remembered a story that she had heard from her husband, before he had gone. He had told her the truth behind the tree. That spark of knowledge lit a will of flame inside her heart, burning vigorously within. And her heartbeats grew louder the more she thought about it.

He had said that the tree that all nations avoided, was actually the Tree of Beginnings. He called it 'Yggdrasil', for it was the gift of the beloved ones to their craft - the first present granted from the higher beings to men. Humans used to always venture to it and pay homage; a pilgrimage of sorts. At least in the past.

Eventually, humans tired of doing so and forgot the gods. But they remembered to stay away from the tree, for passed down between each of the descendants of the First Children were tablets describing the horrors of the Tree, should one attempt to harm it.

They depicted natural disasters like no other. Her husband said that although the Outsutsuki were very old compared to the rest of the world, they were far from the direct lineage of the eldest. He claimed that his word was true, for he was one of such descendants. He had made her swear to repeat the knowledge to no other, in an exchange of blood and promise on the River Styx. He told her of the world's end, should one attempt to disturb the tree.

"No matter what, no one should ever attempt to eat of its fruit. No one. Should they do it, all shall see the end. There will be nothing to conquer it. The red dawn will split the heavens and hell shall spew the black flames which will burn the earth for seven days and seven nights. The resting dead will be tortured in agony and the living shall be plagued by disease and death like no other had ever seen."

Her desperation broke whatever will she had to abide by her missing husband's wishes. To her, the skies were already red. To her, hell had already been opened. To her, there was no difference between each day - that the worst repeated itself countless times.

But she was wrong.

She had no way of knowing what her actions would cause. At least, not the full extent. She was no savior as the humans had put it. She was no goddess. She was just like them. Only, her mistake would cause a reaction more drastic than any other would have expected.

Outsutsuki Kaguya had done what no human dared to do before; she took of the fruit, the cursed fruit that the gods had decreed to be loved and not devoured. She told herself that it was worth the risk. She convinced her mind that her goals were above this level of treason.

But they were not. She had thought that she had the wisdom of a leader; but she did not. She had the heart of a queen and the mind of a king, but she still was the court jester in the eyes of the world. The universe would not bend for the will of one race. The realms would not bow to the needs of one fledgling lifeform.

She did not see this, she did not know. And so, she forced the hand of divinity to strike the lands of all nations.

She had just eaten of the fruit, and already Yggdrasil was displeased. Its body tensed and a shriek filled the air. The tree collapsed into the ground, crushing the earth beneath it. To her horror, the body of the tree began to shake. The flower blossom folded in itself and from it emerged mass of darkness.

Its very existence blackened the skies. The once-red hues were no longer visible beyond the darkened borders. Lightning tore asunder the clouds and thunder reigned from the sky as the rain fell. Rain the color of blood.

She could not believe what she was seeing at first, thinking that this nightmare must have been a concoction of her stress. But it was not to be so. She had broken the treaty between man and the divine, the pact between the universe and its inhabitants. She had crushed the balance, forcing retribution upon her people.

A beast stood before her, its lone eye gazed upon her. The tomoe-ringed glare left her stunned, but she was not helpless. She had eaten of the fruit, and thus, she fled. She fled and hid.

Because she was afraid.

The world was painted anew in crimson, and the fault belonged to none other than Outsutsuki Kaguya, princess and ruler of her nation. But when the world needed a leader the most, she vanished.

It was only eighteen years later when an Outsutsuki had reappeared.

The beast was upon yet another town when he made his appearance. His steps were slow and steady. He stood with a saddened gaze before the monster - one which he knew had all rights to do as it did. His mother told him of her shame. She had told him of the fear that had overtaken her, causing her to flee.

She whispered to herself at night when she thought him to be asleep, and he could hear her strangled sobs. As much as he loved his mother, he was wiser where she had not been. Although he had no idea what he could truly do, he knew what he had to.

Kaguya had been pregnant while she had partaken the fruit, and its strange but powerful forces had been grudgingly transferred to both her and the spawn of her husband.

He had not said a word to the people, only turned towards the beast. It recognized the nature of this human's aura and let out a roar signalling righteous anger. Its eye was upon him, judging him. Waiting for him to make a move.

His words were soft, soft enough that only the beast could read his lips and heard his whispers.

"I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry."

He repeated the phrase in repetition thrice more, making a total count of nine. He closed his eyes and let tears fall down his face. He kneeled before the beast and told it that he was afraid, but he knew that judgment day was upon man. Still, he could not bear to see the people his mother sacrificed so much for be reduced to nothingness, he told the beast.

And thus, the creature gave Haguroumou respect. It was a human who knew the universe. A true sage. A true being. But still, this being was on the opposing side. They had no room for niceties.

The young human began lauding the beast, hoping his plan would work. He was foolish, but not stupid. He had not approached the beast with no plan.

"I beg you beast, I seek not to harm you. I admire you but I have no will to allow you to continue this slaughter, regardless of how good your reason may be. I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.

I beg you beast, to forgive us of our sins once more; I cannot ask you to pardon my next actions, but you know as well as I that we have come to a standstill."

He courteously opened the floor and quickly began to chant,

"Ten tails to share the light, ten tails to share the dark;

One eye to view the world, One eye to judge and mark.

Ten tails to crush the winds - ten tails to soothe the plains.

One roar to level mountains. One roar to split the oceans.

Judge of Judges; Keeper of Truths, I beg of you!

Keeper of Promises, Scribe of Oaths

Cherub of the Heavens, Cerberus of the Underworld,

Destroyer of Corruption, Maker of Balance

Come, come - listen to my cry. Listen to my pleas.

Heed the wailing voices, the souls you have torn apart,

heed the shattering of my mother's broken heart.

Look at me, gaze upon me, o Great Beholder!

I place upon myself a burden I should not bear;

You are given a duty which you must complete.

I shall take you, raging storm, and make you meek.

Ashes upon ashes and dust atop dust…

I banish you into nothing; return to whence you came!

I give you everything you desire! Take life unending!

I lay down my body, I still my shaking soul;

come to me and we shall be whole."

The young sage quickly drew upon a small blade in which he cut upon his palms and immediately clasped them together. He dipped his fingers in his red ambrosia and drew an array over his heart. With a flourish, he carved the final strokes with his knife over the markings by blood.

He cried out, "_Fuuin!"_

And time seemed to crumble; space seemed to shudder. The beast screamed as it was torn from the realm of the living and cast into an abyss it had never known. Its last roar shattered the surrounding mountains and buildings, tearing trees off the ground and said earth to quake.

But its struggle was of no use. The beast was pulled in by chains, dragging it into the body of the young boy. Its eye stared at the boy, and right before it disappeared, it gave the child a look of approval. It had been defeated, but by a worthy opponent. A new guardian of equilibrium. The only human worthy to do so.

Its eye saw many things and everything, and it knew it would eventually fall, despite its duty to fulfill order throughout. It knew of the future and it knew of the past. It knew of sorrows untold and knew of the guilt that it had to bear. Even being the judge did not leave it clean. A small tear leaked down from the beast's eyes, undetected by anyone.

It had seen something before it shut.

The Juubi had foreseen a world where peace was temporary, but it was there. It was headed by a strange, yellow-haired human. His smile confused it, but the Juubi felt oddly relieved by the human's expression. One last flash showed it that there would eventually be tranquility, and it had understood. That boy was the future. That boy was peace.

It closed its ringed eye and accepted its sentence. It trusted the future with the boy it foresaw, no matter when or where the boy would be.

The air was still, and the screaming stopped. For the first time in the years that any living creature could remember, the sky lit up. But it was not black. It was not red. It was a colorful hue of cerulean that had long since been forgotten. The clouds had dissipated and the sun shone above the world, revealing its glory that been unseen in eighteen years.

Outsutsuki Hagouroumou had saved the world and defeated the beast - he had succeeded where all others had failed. He stood slowly and raised his hands, smiling remorsefully. The people had survived. The world had lived.

All was well, it seemed.

Still, humans were hasty - even the wisest - and fell quickly to comfort. They had forgotten that they were only mortal and could make mistakes.

Even Hagouroumou could not avoid falling in line with his mother's steps somehow. He had done something no man had done before as well. He had become a jinchuuriki.

But only the world's first.


	3. Sacrificium

It was hard for him to understand what was going on. Everything was black at first, but then he finally got to that shining light at the end of the tunnel; the one thing he did not like about this was that it was cold. Colder, at least, than what he was accustomed to.

Still, he had been waiting for this moment. He had been anticipating this. He was ready, he convinced himself. He was sure, he often thought.

As often as one unborn child could think, to say the least.

Surprising… both chillingly and not. It was inconceivable - no one, and it was true for all - to be completely sentient… to be entirely cognizant of one's surroundings while still within the womb. That is not to say that children did not know anything, for that would be entirely false.

But there was no way any mortal to have predicted that a child could comprehend the world around him while he was encased in another (his mother's womb). It was simply unheard of. Mostly because it was not done. At least, not in living memory.

This boy had repeated a feat unaccomplished for ages. Not since Outsutsuki Hagouroumou. But that was of no importance. After all, no one knew who that man was. No one knew who he was, either. Not yet. In the meantime, said unborn maelstrom was curious if he was the only one to know what was going on.

He wished he could make these 'friends' that he heard the outside world speak so fondly of. He wasn't sure what they were, but they sounded warm and fuzzy. Maybe he would even get to find out what his 'Kaa-san' looked like. Or how it felt to be held by his 'Otou-san' instead of just feeling the voice's warmth through some touch from the outside.

He longed to be free from this world, and he knew he would be eventually. But sometimes, people just didn't see the eventually and only the now.

He supposed that he had his right to want out of the dark. Sometimes it was scary. A lot of the times he felt unsettled, but he felt calm whenever he heard his 'Kaa-san' whisper to him or when his 'Otou-san' tried to tell him things.

Now, he was on his way to seeing a brand new world.

He reached out and made his way to the light, feeling the chill of the night air for not even a moment when he was snatched up forcefully.

He had heard a voice he had never heard before, and his infantile body involuntarily shivered. Who was this? Better question yet… _what_ was this man? He felt so cold. So odd. So powerful. So crippled. So distant. This man's close presence unnerved the boy and startled him so much that the newborn had begun to cry.

There was something so off about this man, and yet the child had no clue as to what. He wanted to be in arms of his Tou-san and soothed by his Kaa-san.

The person holding the infant seemed to dissipate before the Yondaime and his wife, startling both - Time-Space jutsu of any sort (nin, gen, fuuin) was difficult beyond measure to most people, and yet this stranger used it with such ease that Minato had to admit that perhaps the masked figure was better than him at it.

It took them a split second to realize what else the man had done and the blonde set off in the direction of an estranged howl.

After being abducted so abruptly, the boy had no idea what to do. He panicked visibly, shaking uncontrollably and crying out for help. His tiny arms could do nothing but wave around in the air, and it seemed the strange man did not seem to care for anything but himself. He didn't know how he knew, but the little blonde bundle sensed the unhappiness leaking from Mr. Mask's heart.

To be fair, travelling through space-time also made the child fairly uncomfortable. And it wasn't like he was warned in advance about it. At the moment, he wasn't sure if leaving his other world was the right trade. The world he was just in didn't seem as appealing as he had thought it to be.

And if the boy was correct, this other world the stranger was "hopping" through didn't seem like a walk in the park either (whatever that meant - he just knew that his Kaa-san and Tou-san enjoyed doing that together, and it seemed to make them calm, meaning he was happy too when they did that).

The next words he heard were "_Kuchiyose no jutsu!"_"

At that very moment, fear crept into the heart of this young human. The air was thick with a sort of darkness that felt more painful than the stranger did. This boy shivered.

Strangely, the boy thought, this odd, hurting air reminded me of his time inside his Kaa-chan. It felt like it did when his Kaa-chan got really angry.

A loud crash was heard and the masked man seemed to have vanished again, leaving this infant in the path of the most infamous of the nine bijuu - the Kyuubi no Youko. Its great claws were about to rake the boy, that was, until a flash of golden locks swept in and swept him up.

His heart beat faster and he was suddenly comforted by the arms. They were warm and strong. Strong and kind. It was his Otou-san! A smile graced his lips.

Before his eyes shut from tiredness, he looked back at the giant fox. Its eyes seemed to reflect anger, he detected, but also an unspoken sadness. The boy's eyes widened. Could it be? Was this beast not in control of itself? Did 'Mask' do something to him?

"Bunta!" the voice of his Tou-san rang loud and clear, even through the roars of the Kyuubi.

"Right!"

His father's voice dropped to a low. "Stay here, son." In a flicker of flesh, his father disappeared too, returning with his Kaa-san, though she looked really tired.

She held him tightly, and he was scared again. Why was his mother shaking so much? What was going on?

"Kushina," his father whispered. "I'm so sorry. I… I need to…" He swallowed. "We need to…"

The red-headed woman was paling and weak, but she turned to her husband and placed a finger on his lips, then placing her own mouth atop his. The little boy was confused. What were they doing? He blinked and stared.

His mother broke off the kiss and told her partner, "I love you. I… I may hate this. But… I understand." The Yellow Flash nodded his head, tears falling down his face before he reappeared on Bunta's head.

"Son," his mother's voice was shaky too. "Son," she repeated. "I… I love you. I love you so much. I love you with all my heart." She looked him in the eye. They were red with tears as she brought her head lower and kissed his brow.

An enraged roar erupted and interrupted the mother-son moment; the Yondaime had managed to subdue the Kyuubi. With her waning strength, Kushina held the beast down with her chakra chains.

"Now!" Bunta roared.

In a flurry of hand seals, the Yondaime's fingers danced. He made one last look at his wife before flashing in front of his son. A flash of a knife carved some sort of spiral on the boy's stomach that made him cry aloud.

He shouted a word reminiscent of a certain sage from eons prior. "_Fuuin!_"

The Yondaime Hokage, fourth ruler of Konohagakure no Sato, held his son closely for the last time.

"Son, your mother and I… we love you… but we love this village too. And… we're sorry. We're so, so, sorry… I just…" the man's voice cracked and he faltered. A strangled cry escaped his throat.

Unexpectedly, his son turned to look him in the eye. His son nodded and smiled, patting his father's hair. "Tou-san!"

Minato blinked. What? He was certainly not expecting that. His son … his son had just said his first word! And it was his name! Due to the situation, he didn't realize that his son was barely an hour old and that this act should have been impossible.

And then his son did another thing he couldn't foresee. The little one pointed towards Kushina and whispered (or attempted to) conspiratorially to his father, "Kaa-san!"

He didn't know it, but he was unaware that his mother heard him and smiled a faint one.

Just then, the seal had begun to react, dragging the disintegrating Kyuubi within the young boy's body. His father and mother coughed up blood, once again raising alarm in the small child's head.

His father dropped to his knees, breathing heavily. His mother crawled to him as well. They held him in a loving embrace - their family's first and last.

They whispered one phrase together, before they fell at his side. "We love you… Naruto." With that, the feared devil of Iwa and crimson-haired death to Kumo had fallen. For good.

One last scream was let loose from the Kyuubi before it disappeared completely along with the child, and then the latter's world went black.

The only thought he had before he fell to the shadows was his parents' final word. "_Naruto._"


End file.
